Amid Kimmel's Suspension, the FCC Chair Crossed a Scary Line — One That He Himself Drew

As more and more organizations such as the Television Critics Association (of which I am a board member) publicly condemn the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! by ABC, it is vital, regardless of your political stripe, to not lose sight of the U.S. government entity that at the very least nudged along this suppression of free speech — the FCC, whose current chair, Brendan Carr, was appointed by President Donald Trump in November of last year.

That the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) — by its own words an "independent U.S. government agency" overseen by Congress — would play any role in dissing the First Amendment is not just unacceptable. It's downright scary during these already-turbulent times.

It also crosses a line that Carr himself established just years ago.

HOW WE GOT HERE

Before Kimmel, there was Colbert.

CBS on July 17 announced the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (which will wrap its run in 2026), not long after the late-night talker's host posited on-air that Paramount’s decision to pay a $16 million settlement to Trump over CBS' 60 Minutes amounted to a “big, fat bribe" – all as the company awaited FCC approval on its $8 billion sale to Skydance. (Paramount maintains that The Late Show's axing was strictly a "financial decision" based on viewership vs. expenses.)

President Trump the next day celebrated Colbert's unfortunate fate on social media ("I absolutely love [it]"), then suggested/forewarned: "Next up will be an even less talented Jimmy Kimmel."

From that moment on, you have to figure that Carr was lying in wait, discreetly tasked with pulling at any thread Kimmel let slip.

Before any such reckoning for Kimmel would come, Trump's White House on July 24 targeted The View, saying — as an official institution of the United States federal government, mind you! — that co-host Joy Behar is "an irrelevant loser" who should mind her Ps and Qs "before her show is the next to be pulled off air."

Because that apparently is now how the office of president now stifles its critics, by finding ways to unplug their microphones.

KIMMEL IN THE CROSSHAIRS

On Monday, Sept. 15 — not two months after Trump suggested Kimmel would be "next" to lose his job — Kimmel during his Live! monologue said that "the MAGA gang" had been "desperately trying to characterize this kid (Tyler Robinson) who murdered [conservative pundit] Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them."

Though Kimmel might have just been recapping a crisis with the conservative movement, some saw him as suggesting that Kirk's shooter in fact is MAGA. Some 40 hours later, FCC chief Carr, during a hit on right-winger Benny Johnson's podcast, fired a shot across the bow, saying "there are actions we can take [against] licensed broadcasters" such as ABC.

“[B]roadcasters… have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest," Carr claimed. "When we see stuff like this... look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct... or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

CAN ABC REALLY LOSE ITS LICENSE? (NOPE.)

It's important to note that only individual stations are licensed by the FCC. There is no feasible means for the FCC to strip the entirety of ABC (or any broadcast network) of a "license," despite what Trump or any underling suggests.

In fact, Anna Gomez, the FCC's lone Democratic commissioner, made clear just this week, “We don’t have the ability to actually take these actions, but it’s the threat ... that is the point. It is to get capitulation as soon as possible. And when you see so much capitulation by the corporate parents, it’s really disappointing, because every time they capitulate rather than show courage, what they are doing is eroding our democracy and our First Amendment freedoms.”

Mere hours after Carr tendered his thinly veiled threat, Sinclair (owner of the nation’s largest ABC affiliate group) and Nexstar (which has its $6 billion acquisition of rival TEGNA awaiting FCC approval) each announced their decisions to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future. (Sinclair's press release even went further, asking Kimmel to offer a formal apology to the Kirk family as well as make a "meaningful personal donation" to Turning Point USA, the conservative non-profit co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk.)

Very shortly thereafter, ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! had been "suspended indefinitely" by the network.

THIS CARR DRIVES BOTH WAYS

In recent days, Carr has been making the rounds on friendly cable news outlets, championing the calls made by Sinclair and Nexstar and defending the FCC's purportedly passive role in Kimmel's suspension.

Carr's first official comment on ABC's decision – given to CNN Reliable Sources' Brian Stelter – came in the form of nothing more than a dopey GIF from The Office. Which... was a choice for a grown-ass man running a federal commission.

Carr also cannot seem to get his story straight, avowing that Kimmel got benched because affiliates decided his program was no longer serving "the public interest," while also sharing clips of President Trump saying that "ratings" alone dictated Jimmy Kimmel Live!'s fate.

'CENSORSHIP IS THE AUTHORITARIAN'S DREAM,' CARR FORGETS HE ONCE SAID

Carr can't even agree with his younger self.

In 2021, when a handful of Democrats lobbied cable providers to reconsider their carriage of Newsmax and the like, he argued, "This is a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys," adding: "A newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them."

But if you want "apples to apples," Carr in 2019 declared, "The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the 'public interest.'"

Times apparently changed, I guess?

Even Republican senator Ted Cruz now has taken issue with Carr's "Goodfellas"-like "the hard way or the easy way" podcast posturing.

"Jimmy Kimmel has mocked me so many times, I cannot count.... I am thrilled that he was [suspended]," Cruz said on Sept. 19. "But if the government gets in the business of saying, 'We're going to ban you from the airwaves if you don't say what we like'... that will end up bad for conservatives."

Other instances of a contradictory Carr: In 2020, he opined that asking Twitter to remove a manipulated Nancy Pelosi video "would erode the free speech principles enshrined in the First Amendment," and in April 2022, he said, "Political censorship is a tool that those in power use to suppress any challenge to their positions or orthodoxy."

Hell, just over a year ago Carr described "free speech" as "democracy’s check on government control. That’s why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream."

Now, with the FCC at least appearing to put its thumb on the scale to help silence Trump's critics – including by publicly laying out a handy blueprint for affiliates to follow on the White House's behalf – such an authoritarian dream is at risk of coming true.

That is why it is crucial that corporations be not so quick to capitulate in the name of currying future favor they may never, ever receive, especially with Trump now nudging NBC to sack its own late-night hosts, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon.

The First Amendment has endured for hundreds years. Network execs absolutely cannot let it wither away in the name of bubble-wrapping the oh-so-fragile feelings of one petulant politician.